Shadowfall

Chapter Two

    The group walked for what felt like hours, but truthfully, they only walked to the very outer edge of the town. Kate was starting to feel the exhaustion of the day hit her like a ton of bricks when they finally turned and started up the walkway of a small yellow colored home. Long ago, there had been shrubs growing on either side in greeting, which led all the way to a small staircase, but now the brush was dead and brown and wilting. Kate wished there was a way to fix the nature she saw slowly dying all around them, a way to keep nature as beautiful as it had always been.

    Ahead of her, Vaann pulled the door open and allowed for the others to go in before him. She noticed as Scout passed, Vaann gave the boy a soft smile and a quick ruffle of the hair. Scout smiled widely up at Vaann before he passed through the doorway and into the small home. Kate followed and paused just beyond the doorway to look around. The first thing she was able to notice was the smell of fire. The home itself remained dark and only seemed to get darker as the door swung shut behind them. Vaann brushed past Kate and she frowned when she lost sight of him within the darkness, but seconds later light filled her vision.

    Across the room, she could see Lyllina lighting lanterns that hung in various spots to illuminate the living area. The living area was small, which she would have guessed due to the outside appearing just as small. Beneath their feet stood a dark hardwood floor, scuffed in places from use and age. The walls were a light cream color, which Kate felt was going to look beautiful when the sun came through the windows in the morning - or, at least, it would have if not for the large red stain across the back wall that the cool blue couch leaned against. The couch itself looked comfortable, like it had gotten much good use, but was also covered in angry red stains.

    Bookshelves stood high on the left side of the room, decorated with trinkets, old books, and photographs of the family who must have been here before the group found it, and the occasional sad looking plant. She wondered to herself where the family was now and if they were okay. Hopefully, the blood belonged to someone besides the three brightly smiling young children or their dark haired mother who looked on at them fondly in the photograph that hung on the wall nearest the front door. The kids in the photograph all had similar features and appeared around the same age, a little older than Scout himself - triplets perhaps? The kids all had dark, curling hair and deep brown eyes that Kate would almost call black. The eyes were the only thing that seemed to be different than that of their mother, who's eyes shone a bright blue in the natural light of the sun from the bench in their back yard.

    With further evaluation of the room, it appeared that everything was completely disorderly, aside from the bookshelf which somehow remained untouched. It seemed as if there had been some sort of fight within the house, a struggle. Many of the other pictures which had once hung along the walls now lay in a spot in the corner alongside a pile filled with shards of glass which sparkled in the lantern light. Upon their arrival, the group must have swept the glass and frames to the corner, as the broom sat leaned against the wall beside the mess. The comfy couch had a tear along its side and on the armrest and the blood had run down its front and to the floor where it had pooled in a dark circle. She remembered what Marissa had said about not staying anywhere too long and she prayed that this was one of those times. She wouldn't mind hitting the road soon, even if she was exhausted from the events earlier.

    Finally, Kate's eyes found a small hallway. A small square red rug covered the hardwood there, gold designs covering the middle of the rug. The outer edges of the rug were frayed and dirty, which she assumed was from time and use. At the end of the hallway on either side of the red rug stood two doors, opposite one another. Each door was a deep brown wood with gold doorknobs; while one remained pushed open, the other was tightly closed. A quick peek into the door left open revealed a tidy, untouched bathroom of light blues mixed with dark woods and gold faucets. Her eyes flickered to the other door, curiosity overtaking her, but when she lifted a hand toward the shining doorknob, a voice caused her to jump.